bandcamp
Boring band name, but good music. Words were formed in 2010 and have played with many bands since then, including Antimaster and Inservibles (local Mexican bands), and also opened for Dave Phillips (ex Fear of God), Eskatologia (Sweden) and La URSS (Spain). Here's their debut release - 7 song EP which they recorded last year and released on cassette as well as in digital form in January 2012. They define their style as "crust/sludge/stenchcore/whatever" (all of which is good in my book).

Upd. 12th April: Initially, I was about to post this EP right after I received it (end of March), but then I decided to ask the band about the meaning of the lyrics for the song "Red Fascism", which I didn't fully understood. According to them, it's a song about totalitarianism in the animal kingdom - specifically about ants and their instinctual discipline.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

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I found this band in the list of latest additions on EM, and thought they may be relevant to my blog, as their lyrical themes are: "Politics, Social Issues, Enviroment", and it looks like the lyrics on this demo (or at least the 1st track) are indeed political. The music is good for a first demo, though nothing innovative. According to their facebook page, they were influenced both by thrash metal (Slayer, Megadeth), and death metal - both melodic (In Flames, At The Gates) and brutal (Dying Fetus, Necrophagist). BTW, don't confuse them with a metallic hardcore band under the same name from Cleveland, OH, which released an excellent LP "Hell On Earth" on Holy Terror Records in 1998.

Sinat Hinam, a very obscure band that was formed circa 2005 and disbanded in 2008, were probably the one and only crust band with lyrics entirely in Hebrew. Moreover, they were the only known crust band in Israel who incorporated some elements of black metal into their music (until Tamut Amen were formed). There's not much info about Sinat Hinam, but at least their list of influences looks quite good: Axegrinder, Amebix, Wretched, Nerorgasmo, Dir Yassin, Napalm Death, D.S.-13, Motörhead, Hellshock, etc. They described their music as "a neandertalic caveman crushing the angel of death's head on the ruins of the jewish temple in jerusalem" (c). Line-up:

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Finally, a full-length release by Ancient Oak is here! Despite being completely instrumental and quite lengthy album, "Embrace Of Death" is very good release (at least for an one-man DIY project). So, now we have another instrumental BM/stenchcore project which is even better than Eternal Dysphory, and it's definitely great news. Hope to hear much more from Ancient Oak in the future.

P.S. When this album was posted (by the author himself) on gnwp.ru, someone pointed out that it contains a Burzum cover ("Han som Reiste"). However, the guy behind Ancient Oak has strongly denied any ideological connections with Burzum, and I'm 100% sure that he's an anarchist who's just interested in Norwegian mythology. According to him: "Varg's lyrics have no political message whatsoever, so I think it was OK to do such a cover. Moreover, my music is completely instrumental, so I couldn't include any politics in it, even if I wanted to"

66° 33′39″ "The Light from the Depth of the Arctic Ocean"Year: 2012Genre: Drone Ambient, Old Roots New ShootsCountry: Russia

Track List:

Погружение в арктический океан

Путешествие

Свет со дна

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The first "more or less serious" solo work from one of the most staunch supporters of the RABM movement here (and a member of one of the most prominent "Old Roots New Shoots" bands... won't say which exactly). It's an one track EP, but it consists of 3 parts: "Submerge into the Arctic Ocean", "Journey", and "A Light from the Depth". Compared to his previous works, it's more drone/noise than just dark ambient.

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Omut (Омут, " slough") is an one-man band from Ivanovo that started somewhere in 2010 as a nature-inspired "noise/scream" project. To be honest, the first demos were just unlistenable, so I won't post them. However, this EP is a different story; while the music is still very simplistic, raw and noisy, it's a big step forward from the first demos. Recommended to anyone who likes both DSBM and raw US-style BM/noise. As of today, the project isn't explicitly political, but it's still anarcho-friendly, and definitely anti-nazi ("we're all equal in front of the face of death... nazis and fascists - fuck off, the real black metal is free of this shit"). Looks like it's somehow connected to the Ivanovo-based crust band Plastid, but I'm not sure if it's a side project of one of their members.

The archive contains all the music, lyrics (with translations) and artwork in highest possible resolution. Some more artwork from the earlier demos, which I forgot to add to the archive:

Monday, March 19, 2012

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Kata Sarka are a 4-piece band from Indianapolis, led by A.V.9, ex-member of The Electric Hellfire Club, a relatively well-known satanic industrial rock band, and several other projects. According to Encyclopaedia Metallum, their main lyrical themes are: "Insanity, Mysticism, Anti-Capitalism, Survivalism". So far they have released two demos, a split w/ Nak'ay, and most recently - a full-length album called "Existential Oblivion". The only their release I've listened to is "The Great Dereliction", and I can safely call it one of the most promising blackened crust demos of 2011.

So, why not to post it here? It isn't sanctioned by the band, but I hope it's OK because it's available for free from their bandcamp (other releases are available for streaming only). Also check out the interview with A.V.9 here.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

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I already have introduced you to this one-man project from Minnesota, and here's his first demo EP, consisting of 3 tracks. Beside these 2 songs which I already have written about, the demo contains one more short instrumental track. Release notes:

"This is an ep designed so that it would work good on a 7" extended play vinyl. Someone pointed out to me just how raw my recordings are at the moment, so I'm calling it an "ep/demo." I hope those who are not fans of raw can listen through the obviously amateur quality. Hopefully some day I'll be able to rerecord it with better equipment... It is for sure a bit (more like a lot) on the raw side... Unfortunately that part hasn't really changed, My means of production are not great at the moment...

Also it is sort of post-black-metal, with raw production quality (I actually wrote it before I knew about PoM or WiTTR or any of the other bands that does this style. Also I don't like WiTTR that much, but PoM and Skagos are really good, but that's kind of an aside) which seems to be something that you post a lot of. I wouldn't say that my project is RABM, but I'm supportive of the idea"

As for the lyrics - the song "The Wyrm Takes Over" has fantasy-based lyrics, but it was meant to be allegorical: "...it is a metaphor for the way that those with power tend to argue for free-trade as benefitting poor countries, while in fact it tends to enrich the global capitalist class at the expense of the global working class, and while it occasionally benefits some in the semiperiphery, it seldom benefits the actual periphery.

A new song (Little Ice Age) is also kind of RABM-friendly. It's about how religious authorities in Norse Greenland (christian at this point) refused to emulate the Inuit who recently settled nearby during the Little Ice Age (a cold period which started between the 13th and 14th centuries, after the Medieval Warm Period and ended in the late 19th century). The colony in Greenland was really only viable due to the Medieval Warm Period, and the methods of subsistence that the Norse there were employing just could not withstand the cooling. On the other hand, the Inuit had a very flexible and well adapted subsistence system, and the cooling to some extend allowed them to occupy greenland better. It's basically a good historical / archaeological example of how religious and social conservatism in the face of daunting environmental changes lead to the end of the colony in Greenland. In the song, a Norse protagonist get's fed up with the power of the religious authorities and burns down a church before abandoning them and joining the Inuit.

I'm thinking I might release WTO and LIA on a 15m ep (only for d/l unfortunately) with the instrumental "slothomore" (which is just a pun and has no deep meaning)..."

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Primitive Accumulation, or ((prmtv-ccmltn)), are a bandfrom Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, whose first demo cassette "Drive for Return to Inorganic Matter" came out in December of 2011. Musically they're influenced by raw black metal, power violence/fastcore, noise and "other weird shit we can get our hands on" (c); politically - by the ideas of Marx, Marcuse, Negri, Deleuze, Guattari and the New Left in general. The demo consists of 8 short tracks, but it's mixed in one long track here (alternative download link with 8 tracks). I'd recommend it to fans of very raw, primitive USBM, and noisecore.

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A little off topic here - political rapcore from Rawicz, Poland, made by readers of my blog. While their style is based on hip-hop, they draw influence from various genres, including industrial rock. Archive includes all booklet scans with the lyrics (some more lyrics from their earlier releases can be found here).

BTW, recently I was thinking about making another compilation of socially conscious hip-hop from ex-USSR, like this one - as there's a lot of new projects of such kind, but also a massive wave of "nazi rap" (which started to appear not only in ex-USSR, but also in Germany and Greece) which needs to be countered. However, I'm not sure if my readers would interested in this; second, gnwp.ru (a main source of such music) is currently down, so I have to postpone this project.

Release notes:"this album was recorded in two parts, first 7 tracks being the original goats hill sessions, recorded in käpylä recording dungeon & vocals in a haunted cabin at the forests of sherwood. the last three songs where recorded a month or two later in tattarmass sessions, in käpylä recording dungeon,situated in southern wastelands"

I'm continuing to post old school metal (yes, Odmetnik, now you can't blame me for posting too much crust and hardcore!), and now here's a 2-piece act from Finland called Spellhammer. They're playing old school, 1st wave raw black metal, and have a number of side projects ranging stylistically from doom metal to crust. So far they have released one full-length album "Goat's Hill" at 18th of February 2011.

According to Encyclopaedia Metallum, one of their central lyrical themes is "story of Noita-Kallo". I googled it, but found only several pages in Finnish (which I don't understand at all, and even Google Translate didn't help much), and one short page in Swedish. At first I thought it was something like Dyatlov Pass accident (one of the well-known unsolved mysteries that have inspired many Russian (and not only) BM, industrial and dark ambient projects), but one of the member of Spellhammer explained that it actually refers to the series of grave robbings and cadaver mutilations that took place in Helsinki in the 1930's:

"noita kallio(kallio being his sr name) was this character, a sort of shaman mixed up with black arts and such. this woman who apparently sffered from shizophrenia came for healing and saw these apparitions appearing to the wall saying that in the pond of tattarisuo was a hidden treasure and the spirits in the pond wold give it up if you would give it a hman hand. so the hand didnt help and they gave it another and things escaladed from there. they end feeding the pond several gorpses and body parts, dug up from graves in malmi cemetary, stolen from a morgue in harju. both of those places exist today, the latter in a youth centre and the pond in tattarisuo is lodged between a freeway and a small airport"

The whole album is available from their bandcamp for free (and of course, posting it here is sanctioned). You may also buy it from Satanica Productions (BTW, I see they have a new album by Conrad in their catalog... I definitely should get it!).

The 2nd and the final LP by Sacrilege. You won't find any raw, fast and aggressive stuff there - in contrast to Sacrilege's earlier releases, "Turn Back Trilobite" features slow doom metal with a progressive tinge and very melancholic atmosphere, with lyrics inspired by science, cosmogony, Hinduism and existential philosophy. Fans of crust and raw old school thrash/proto-black metal most probably would be disappointed, but I'd say it's definitely very "mature" release, and it was a quite original work in its day...

Speaking of female-fronted metal: here's a band from Birmingham that's widely regarded as one of the pioneering bands in a number of genres, including metallic crust, proto-black metal, and doom metal. According to Wikipedia: "Sacrilege were a female-fronted thrash metal band from the Midlands region of England. Despite having played relatively few gigs during their existence, Sacrilege are today recognised as an important band; both as an influence on later heavy metal and doom metal bands, and as an example of the blending of hardcore punk, radical politics, and heavy metal that occurred during the 1980s, making Sacrilege one of the prototypical crust punk bands of the time". Their political affiliation becomes obvious if we take in account that 2 members of Sacrilege also played in a well-known anarchist punk-82 band The Varukers. While "Within The Prophecy" is somewhat generic 80s-style speed/thrash metal, their debut album "Behind The Realms Of Madness" is a quite interesting work which incorporates elements of Amebix-style crust. Don't know if we call them one of the precursors for blackened crust (along with Amebix and Axegrinder), but their debut album is definitely a must-listen release for everyone who likes both RABM/blackened crust and old school metal; and Lynda "Tam" Simpson's vocals are remarkable as well.

The Hunt are a band from Perth playing excellent metallic crust/d-beat. This is an "alternate"/earlier mix of their debut LP, made available for free download by their former guitarist (the final version would be re-mastered, with many of his guitar parts removed). They're said to be influenced by such bands as Tragedy, Fall Of Efrafa and Buried Inside (very good list of influences, I'd say).

Saturday, March 3, 2012

FIRE IN THE CAVE "Fire In The Cave"Year: 2012Genre: Blackened Sludge/Doom MetalCountry: USA

Track List:

Civilized Swamp

Aedenn Carr

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A 5-piece band from Orlando, FL, which somehow reminds me of Eden To Ashes (and apparently not only me, as Eden To Ashes are on their last.fm list of similar bands). However, their music isn't MDM, but raw sludge/post-metal with strong BM and blackened crust overtones. According to them:

"Our desire for inclusion on your blog stems from our loathing for those who advocate spiritual based social privileges. I, personally, abhor how faith is perturbed as an instrument which cultivates an addiction to sentience, rather than a vaster understanding of the physical reality we're all currently confined by... Feel free to share and critique this on your blog, but most importantly enjoy the music (on drugs)"

One more metal project which I found on revleft.com long time ago (it's a band of one of the active members of that forum). An excerpt from their official biography:

"Eden to Ashes is a new Dutch metal band based in Nijmegen. They combine devastating metal with atmospheric and experimental overtones... The band tries to steer away from musical conventions and develop a sound based around death metal, but expanding into many different musical areas. Primary influences include artists such as Gojira, Devin Townsend, Behemoth and Neurosis. Their songs cover a wide range of lyrical themes such as societal problems, philosophy and entheogenic experiences. “When the decision was made to pull the plug on Heaven Denies, we all felt the need to create something different and new, without the burden of genres and conventions” Omar Kleiss, bass player and co-founder of the band, explains. “I think we have written some great material and we are getting close to the sound we have been looking for since the start of our band.”"Well, their sound turned out to be not as progressive as I expected after reading that, and the vocal work isn't that impressive, but it's still a good demo (moreover, it's completely free), so I recommend to give it a listen.

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Some more American blackened crust/hardcore - this time from Richmond, VA. Just like in case with Violent Ends, the album was sent me by the band themselves, and their music is quite decent. For further info, see the links below:

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1st full-length album from this NC-based hardcore band. Maybe their sound isn't really that "blackened", but they're long-term supporters of my blog and their music is good, so i advice everyone to check out this release.

DOWNLOADRelease notes:""Power, Propaganda, Production!" is the new MILITIA album and it's a bull's eye! The six famous muscle workers from Belgium have not only unleashed a new production following their 2005 album "Everything Is One" on the new defunct Tactical but have also set a new milestone in their long-running industrial career. The album contains eleven new studio tracks dealing with the very topics MILITIA has always been pointing at during their provocative career: the relation between industry, the dictatorial capitalist system and the situation of the subordinate workers, the economic and financial crisis, the power of the dollar, the exploitation of human and natural resources and reserves, pollution and global warming, the and-needs-and-rights of the oppressed, the strength of unity and solidarity as a means to wipe the floor with governments, regimes and religions that are based on greed, corruption and cruelty.

Militia is a Belgian industrial-percussion band, founded in 1989 by multi instrumentalists Frank Gorissen and Jo Billen. Most of our percussion instruments are made out of oil barrels and old metal parts from cars and machines. They combine these self made instruments with conventional drums, toms and cymbals. The band members also play a variety of self-made wind instruments and tools.

"Power, Propaganda, Production!" comes in a deluxe cardboard box with an 8-page booklet and a magnificent MILITIA politburo mini-poster, all designed by Metastazis from France. The six percussion players are lined up in front of the new flag, fists clenched, shoulder to shoulder, stronger than ever, armed with their huge metal and skin percussion installations to crash the corrupt systems under their boots!"

After 6 years of silence, a new Militia LP was released in March 2011, consisting of 11 pieces of glorious propaganda. If you heard and liked their earlier albums ("Everything Is One" and "The Black Flag Hoisted"), I'll definitely recommend it to you; otherwise you may find it too lengthy and boring, especially if you aren't familiar with this kind of music. Anyway, this is one more time Militia have proved to be good successors to (early) Laibach, and the cover art is great too.

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About the blog

First of all: there's probably a lot of broken English on this blog. Hope it isn't that bad, at least I'm trying to do my best. Feel free to point me to any of my mistakes, if there are any. -B.K.

If you're playing in a band and want to see your music featured on our blog - just send a download link of your demo to us:

- oiseau [@] riseup [.] net - for basically anything RABM-related, but she is generally interested in atmospheric, depressive, and post-BM stuff, as well as the projects from Latin America (and Mexico in particular). You can also contact her via facebook.

- band name, release name/year, country of origin, album cover image (or at least band photo or logo);

- track listing (properly numbered);

- preferably a full release (not samples or streaming) in mp3/m4a/ogg (128kbps or higher bitrate). You may use any free filesharing site (preferably Mediafire) to host your files; or you can use Bandcamp (but then make sure your release is available for free download). *** NO LARGE ATTACHMENTS PLEASE!!! ***;

- any other info about you and your release (links to any sites related to your band, release notes, etc.);

- reason why you want your music to be featured on our blog (note that it's not just another metal blog, and even if your band is apolitical, it still should be somehow in the spirit of RABM movement).

Most of the uploads here are band sanctioned. Anyway, if you for some reason don't want to see your music here, contact us via email (rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com), and we'll consider taking it down.

If you wish to become a contributor for this blog, send a message to rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com. The obvious requirements are: being supportive of the RABM movement, good proficiency in English, and willingness to review lots of albums on a regular basis.

FAQ

Q.: Which kinds of music are featured on this blog?

A.: - (primarily) RABM or Red & Anarchist Black Metal: all kinds of black metal-related music charged with radical leftist (anarchist, libertarian socialist, eco-anarchist, etc.) political views. Some of the bands featured here may be not openly political, but all of them are RABM-friendly;

- blackened crust/hardcore/punk (only if it's openly RABM-friendly, or if it's just very good music; we have no intention to collect here all the blackened punk in existence);

A.: Most bands nowadays have a bandcamp page, where you can but their stuff online (usually for an arbitrary price). It's the most convinient way to support the band. If your favourite band don't have a bandcamp or bigcartel page, try to find out in which distro you can find their albums/merch. Of course, go to concerts if you have such opportunity.

Q.: How can I offer my financial support to this blog, or the RABM movement in general?

A.: Unfortunately right we don't have an opportunity to accept donations, but we hope we'll be able to set it up soon.

Q.: What is the connection between black metal and hardcore/punk/crust?

A.: It's a well-established fact that the connection between black metal and punk scenes existed since the early days of BM (think Venom, early Bathory, early Mayhem and early Sodom on one side, and Amebix, Discharge and Axegrinder on another). Recently this mix of BM and hardcore punk got a new life in the form of blackened crust (thanks to Black Kronstadt / Iskra in first place). And don't forget about Cascadian black metal bands with their radical environmentalist ideology, often to the extent of radical eco-anarchism or "pro-nature/anti-humanity" ideas.

Q.: What's your main ideology?

A.: This blog is generally written from a position of anarchism without adjectives; however, the RABM scene is very diverse ideologically. Let us end on this, as this blog isn't quite a right place for purely political debates; if you want to learn or argue about anarchism/other ideologies, there's a lot of specialized FAQs/blogs/forums for you.

Q.: Isn't black metal supposed to be apolitical?

A.: Supposed by whom? I personally don't think so, but if you think that political awareness should have no place in "true" black metal, you can feel free to call the bands featured on here "blackened punk" or whatever you want. It should be noted, though, that a lot of these bands doesn't openly talk about politics in their lyrics, exactly because they think it wouldn't be suitable for black metal. - B.K.

Q.: Isn't RABM just an "answer" to NSBM?

A.: While RABM is definitely against NSBM and any other kind of far-right crap in metal scene, it's most emphatically a self-sufficient movement and not any kind of "answer to NSBM". Similarly, while RABM is 100% pro liberation from any kinds of religious tyranny, it isn't a movement against any particular religion (Christianity, Islam, or any other).

Q.: What's your opinion on Satanism?

A.: The so-called "Hollywood Satanism", which is often found in black metal, is, in our opinion, nothing more than inverted Christianity, so we aren't big on it. Many of us are simply atheists, pagans of all kinds, gnostics, etc. We also don't share the notion that only genuine theistic Satanists / Devil-worshippers can play "real" black metal (this would exclude such bands as Venom, Bathory, Immortal, Summoning, and many many others). Additionally, the very term "Satanism" is quite vague, and can't be narrowed down to LaVeyan Satanism (which is heavily disliked by many black metallers), or whatever else. LaVey had some good points, but in general his philosophy can be described just as "Ayn Rand with some occult tinge".

Q.: What about misanthropy and nihilism?

A.: To put it in short: we don't hate everyone and everything (and we don't think there's anyone﻿ who truly does). We just hate these traits of humanity which make true anarchist society most likely infeasible in the foreseeable future.

Q.: Collectivism or individualism?

A.: There actually is no "hard" contradiction between these two terms. Individualism is simply an outlook emphasizes the moral worth of the individual and its right not to be oppressed by the state or some social group. It doesn't contradict at all with standing up for your rights along with a group of like-minded individuals. It also worth noting that the early black metal scene didn't promote individualism that much (see "black metal circles").

Q.: Who coined the term "RABM"?

A.: Hard to say, but there's an apparent similarity to RASH ("Red & Anarchist Skinheads"). Here's the very first mention of "RABM" we could find (August 2005). The term was popularized by our last.fm group (and later - by this blog) since 2009.

Q.: Do you know the ideology of the band X? It isn't obvious if they're NSBM or not...

A.: Sorry, we don't know, do your own research. It's often hard to say anything certain about a band's views, if the members themselves aren't open about it. We also don't advice using various "lists of nazi bands" etc. as a reference, as most of them are full of bullshit. Similarly, forum posts or blog comments (especially anonymous ones) generally aren't a reliable source for anything. In one particular case, we had an anonymous comment claiming that the members of Timebomb are now playing in a fascist band called SPQR. Later it turned out that it were members of a completely other Italian band with a similar name (Timebombs). Hopefully that'd be a good example of how important fact-checking is.

Q.: I've seen some of the albums posted here in the same distro with some albums by right-leaning bands...

A.: Unfortunately it's often the case with distros and labels that distribute stuff regardless of its political affiliation. Even Austin Lunn of Panopticon complained about Pagan Flames (the label which released his "Collapse" and "Social Disservices" LPs) having NSBM in their distro, so things like these are just unavoidable.

Q.: Some bands on this blog have Burzum on their list on influences. Isn't Varg Vikernes a nazi?